


This One Last Thing

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Homeland
Genre: F/M, Friendship, Hurt/Comfort, Love, Spies, age gap
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-09
Updated: 2020-06-09
Packaged: 2021-03-04 03:48:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,266
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24617098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: In the beginning of season three, Saul and Carrie are scheming and no one else knows. . . they meet to finalize their plan before Carrie goes to the reporter in episode two.
Relationships: Saul Berenson/Carrie Matthison
Comments: 2
Kudos: 5





	This One Last Thing

“Eat something,” Saul suggested. Carrie’s eyes skirted the cafe chosen because it was far enough from the city and vague enough to be overlooked. “You look thin.”

“Now you’re worried? Let’s not, Saul.”

“I’m worried,” he took her hand in both of his, squeezed it reassuringly. “Of course I am. Come on. Will you eat something?”

“I can’t eat when I’m like this. You know that.”

“I do?”

“You do now. Welcome to the wonderful world of Matthison mania,” she scoffed and pulled her hand from his. To fill the void between his palms, he wrapped his hands around his coffee cup, unable now to drink, his stomach soured. He knew. He must have known, but somehow hearing her say it in that alliterative lilt, seeing the paranoid panic in her eyes made it more than an abstract concept.

“So this is real? You’re not just putting it on?”

Carrie sucked a deep breath, grimaced at him, widened her eyes, and shook her head. “In the beginning, it was a bit of playacting. I was still sort of holding it together. But I’m off my lithium, Saul. Like, all the way off now. This is the real deal. You wanna go out to your car and fuck? Cuz I’m down. Not that I’ve ever said no to you about anything else before.” She rolled her eyes and Saul closed his momentarily, to compose something in himself he couldn’t find and didn’t even know if it existed.

“Have you slept?” He regretted the question as soon as he asked.

“Fuck no. What do you think this is?” Carrie flagged the waitress who had been lingering, possibly curious of her mannerisms. “Can I get a martini, actually make it two martinis, a little dirty, three olives?” The waitress nodded and went off to fulfill her obligation. Carrie stared at Saul who’s mouth opened and closed like a fish.

“At least have a sandwich. Or some bread,” he was practically begging. He thought how Mira said she could always tell when he spoke to Carrie on the phone because his voice was special for her like it was for no one else. Well, it wasn’t fucking special now. It was fucking desperate.

“You never told me how you liked my act at the restaurant with the newspaper. Dar Adal seemed particularly aghast. Now that,” she paused and nodded her head for effect, stabbed her finger in the air at nothing in particular. “That was gratifying. Smug son of a bitch.”

“Carrie,” Saul tried to soften pleading with tenderness. Her drinks came and he watched as she gulped one. She grinned at him naughtily as she thrust the toothpick of plump olives into her mouth and sucked them off between her lips.

“What?” She asked, masticating the olives between her perfect teeth.

Working his jaw, he fought for words. “You know what’s next, right?” His voice was practically a whisper.

“Yup,” she reached for her second drink. Something shattered in him. He clenched his eyes shut and said, “Carrie, god, drinking now. . .”

“Shut the fuck up Saul so help me,” Carrie sputtered at him. “Besides. I haven’t even decided what I’m going to do yet. So fuck off.”

“Okay.” Saul waved a hand between them. He was afraid to open his eyes.

“Maybe you’re just mad it isn’t yours.”

“Jesus fucking Christ Carrie!”

“Joking,” Carrie sniffed a laugh that didn’t seem funny at all, as she poked another olive into her mouth.

“You just have this one last thing, then we’re into the next phase. You can do this.”

Carrie sipped and Saul watched the effort it took for her to focus her eyes on him. When she did focus, her eyes were not only keen, but razor sharp. He felt them slice through him and winced at the pain inflicted with her implicit questions and accusations.

“You know, hearing you sell me down the river on national television was awful. But hearing you try to convince me, or yourself- I don’t even know anymore- that you’re doing this for some greater good, is possibly the worst thing I’ve ever known. Even worse than saying goodbye to the only man I’ve ever loved in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere, to come back to you.”

He sucked in his breath like the ocean sucks itself in before a tidal wave of mass destruction, but he let it out in a sigh. “We will do this thing,” he offered in a small voice.

In the parking lot he asked if she was okay to drive, knowing she was not but not wanting to be bothered with ramifications of her intoxication. Besides, Mira was waiting for him. He watched her stand at her car. She didn’t get in. She just stood there, like she was waiting. Finally, he went to her. “What is it?”

“I’m scared,” she said and looked up at him with eyes of so much endless sky it scared him too. “They’re going to put me away, Saul.”

“You’ve done it before though.”

“But that was my choice. This time it’s against my will because it has to be for it to work.”

Saul looked up at the sky. “What do you need?”

“Can you just hold me a bit?” Carrie’s voice came from another planet.

“Yeah,” he said. He drove someplace dark and shut the car off completely so there was no light or noise. “Come here.” Pulling her body into his embrace, he was shocked at how slight and frail she felt. “You can do this. You aren’t frightened. You are the fucking bravest person I know, Carrie.” The feathers of her hair tickled his face.

“My brain is whirling,” she touched his neck and he tried to think of Mira waiting for him and not of the little pads of her fingers blessing the creases of his flesh. He fumbled through the index cards in his brain, searching for the right speech.

“You’ve got to focus. Just do this one last thing. Call the reporter. First thing in the morning, Carrie. Call her.”

“What if I can’t do it, Saul?” Her words slurred and he didn’t know if it was because she was drunk or because she was out of her head, but he was more frightened than he ever was on home turf. He stroked her head. He pinched the back of her neck the way he knew she liked.

“I know you can,” he breathed against her. He shuffled his cards and decided to put them all on the table. “You can do it for you or for him. . . or for the baby. Whatever. But I know you can do it.”

"It's not a baby yet. It's barely even the size of a lentil," she mumbled. He could tell she tried to sound insouciant, but he felt her crying in his arms. He held her, absorbed the heat of her pain with the cushion of his body.

“You got this. We’re almost there. You’ll clear his name.”

“Promise me you won’t leave me in there like some tin foil hat loser, Saul.”

“Of course not. Come on. You can do this. We both can.”

He drove away with the scent of her gin soaked breath stinging his sinuses, wondering how large a lentil was in the grand scheme of things.

He drove away hoping she would eat something and knowing she wouldn’t.

He drove away praying to all the gods in which he did not even believe that she would do this one last thing to keep them in play. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for taking the time to read. . . any thoughts or comments you want to share are so welcome and appreciated and I do try to respond to everyone. Connection is so vital, especially right now Many thanks and good wishes to you! oxoxoxo.


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